IB CONFERENCE

As life has returned to ‘normal’ post COVID, the world has again opened up for international travel. This meant that in March a big team of Dio staff were able to attend the International Baccalaureate Asia Pacific Regional Conference, the first one in some time.

Diocesan will soon be accredited as a full IB school. For many years we have had the Diploma Programme (DP and offered to Years 12 and 13) and the Primary Years Programme (PYP and delivered by the Junior School). We are part way through implementing the Middle Years Programme, or MYP, which is for Years 7-10. In the past couple of years, the delivery of the PYP and the DP at Diocesan has been reviewed by the IB, and both received glowing reports on the programmes. This year we will be seeking authorisation to implement the MYP. Dio teachers are well ready for this, as the Years 7, 8 and 9 cohorts are currently being taught under this framework as a candidate school.

The team that travelled to the conference in Adelaide represented all three of these programmes: the three coordinators (Nicole Lewis, Michelle Nicholl and Susan Marriott) the two Heads of School (Sue Cattell and Margaret van Meeuwen) Heather McRae (Principal) and Karen Lile (the Director of Curriculum). Karen’s position is a new one at Dio, designed to have oversight of the two pathways we offer: the New Zealand Curriculum and the NCEA qualifications and the three IB programmes. She is particularly tasked with looking at the transition points (Year 6 into Year 7 and Year 10 into Years 11 and beyond). Karen came to Dio as MYP cover for Michelle’s parental leave in 2022, and her experience in the

IB and in the international environment has been extremely valuable to us.

The conference itself was well run, featured several high-profile keynote speakers and offered several smaller, more interactive sessions covering all aspects of the programmes, from teaching perspectives to leadership and governance in schools. More than anything it was a fabulous opportunity to reconnect with fellow IB educators from all over the Asia Pacific region.

The theme for this year was education for an inclusive future and the keynote speakers gave inspirational talks for us all to reflect on in our own context.

Susan Marriott attended a session called Getting the most out of our DP students: A look at the factors behind student performance in DP schools in Australia facilitated by Corin Bone and Simon Turk, from Glenunga International HS in Adelaide. They conducted research across 68 IBDP schools around Australia to see what contributed most to success in the programmes. While Diocesan’s Diploma students score well – our average subject scores, average total scores and percentage of students achieving 40+ points consistently exceed world averages – it is interesting to note the key success indicators according to this research. The biggest impact on success, probably unsurprisingly, was literacy and numeracy skills. This was judged as more impactful than the size of the class or the number of years the programme had been running in a school.

Of significance, and a strength of the IBDP, is that for students for whom English is not their first or best language, success in the programme is not compromised. The IB insists that as long as English language output does not hinder a student’s ability to demonstrate conceptual understanding in internal and external assessment, marks will be awarded and linguistic inconsistencies will not be penalised (in groups other than ‘Language’ and ‘Language Acquisition’). This research would support this claim and certainly endorses the IB’s international awareness and desire for students in the programme to ‘become inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people… who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.’ (IB Mission Statement)

Like the New Zealand context, the IBO is always reviewing its programmes to enhance learning for the thousands of young people worldwide who are in IB schools. Michelle Nicholl attended a session presented by Nat Erbes, the Senior Curriculum Manager, Middle Years Programme (MYP) titled Enhancing the MYP

Karen Lile reports on Jane Jarvis from Flinders University who delved into what it really means to effectively teach academically diverse learners in an inclusive school. She reminded us that genuine daily engagement is needed to make education work for everyone. So, what might that look like? Students listen and learn when their diversity is respected. We can create schoolwide wellbeing by “supporting and building a connected community in which the key needs of every member of the community are met in an equitable way”. The IB learner profile of open-mindedness is the key to creating a sense of belonging and connectedness in the classroom and school environment. In fact, all the learner profile attributes contribute to creating the classroom, school and home environments that support this. Within the MYP curriculum, currently in Years 7-9, students are exposed to these in several ways, and these are becoming more and more visible as we roll out the MYP curriculum across the Junior High School.

The goal is to better prepare learners, empower educators more and support schools in the implementation of their MYP programme. During the session, Erbes gave a behind-thescenes overview of the aims, timeline and informing research for Enhancing the MYP. The IB is heading into the development phase after exploration and research phases, which included a multi-year collaborative review and extensive research about the impact of MYP: Next Chapter. Whilst these changes are not predicted to take place until 2026, the session provided an insight into the evidenced-based nature of the IB programmes.

Michael McQueen, an Australian award-winning speaker and trend forecaster, was the final keynote speaker. He discussed how we respond as educators to the future trends, particularly when it came to technological innovations. ChatGPT, and in fact all AI, will impact the way we educate our students for their future professions, some of which we cannot even imagine right now! He believes the rise of virtual reality and the metaverse can bring learning to life. Embracing innovations can be a gift if harnessed well. As educators connected to a global network, we will be curious to see how these develop and look forward to embracing them within our own school environment in the future.

The conference overall was an experience of face-to-face engagement after so many years of Zoom sessions and online training. There is nothing like the personal touch to create a buzz to take back home to school!